Riding a bicycle without a helmet on in Halifax? That’s a paddlin’. What is the deal with helmet laws in this stupid city? You have a better chance of getting a head injury while in a car, so why don’t we make drivers wear foam hats? Getting out of the bathtub? better have your foam hat on! This fat and stupid city wants me to be fit and healthy by punishing me for rolling down the street at 5mph without my brain bucket on? What an outlaw I am! Okay so here’s the low down Halifax! The way the law is written for skateboarders and rollerbladers, is that if you have a collection of unpaid helmet fines it can affect your auto insurance rates. BUT… the law written up for bicycles doesn’t affect your insurance! So throw those bike helmet fines away folks, and keep on peddling! —Helmet Hooligan
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2013.
No, OP, you aren’t an outlaw. You aren’t even a hooligan.
You’re a cupid stunt, so wear your helmet and shut the fuck up.
Wearing a helmet is punishing you? Fuck right off OP!
Oh fuck off, OB.
Let me revise my previous statement:
Until there’s a system where you can opt out of wearing a helmet at the price of pulling of any health coverage for head injuries (thus making it a very un-Canadian pay system for your noggin bo-boos), suck it up!
make sure to sign the organ thing on your health card renewal
You’re just some dipshit hipster who doesn’t want to mess up their perfectly coiffed hair, aren’t you.
To hell with the organ donor card; ain’t nobody want this clown’s hempy lungs.
Didn’t we have nearly this exact same bitch a while back?
Do what you want. It’s your right to make your own choices.
You have to wear a helmet sky-diving as well. That way if the chute doesn’t open.. ah.. Why do you wear a helmet sky-diving?
Since this is a recycled bitch, I’m going to recycle my last response on this topic:
Right or wrong I guess these laws are put in place to protect idiots from themselves. It’s too bad we can’t let natural selection do its job anymore…
The frequency of accidents (and therefore the likelihood of danger) according to you may not be high enough to justify a helmet law but in the event you do get in an accident, your melon is not going to win against pavement/a car/etc.
Helmet laws discourage cycling, and fewer cyclists on the road makes cycling more dangerous.
Helmet efficacy is greatly exaggerated, and largely unproven.
Helmet laws feed the idea that helmets are the first & last words in bike safety, and thus distract from measures that can actually keep bicyclists safe. Governments & parents will thus feel that once they’ve slapped a helmet on a kid’s head they’ve done their part. This is equivalent to giving someone a flak jacket and having them run around a firing range. It’s better to learn how to not get hit in the first place.
The health benefits in longevity from cycling without a helmet outweigh the risk of cycling.
Helmet laws discourage cycling because people will prefer to not ride rather than wear a helmet
Helmet laws discourage cycling because it promotes an idea of cycling as inherently dangerous
Helmet laws destroy the possibility of municipal bike sharing/rental programs. (These are systems where there are bicycles located throughout a city at kiosks where anyone can easy get a bike for a short trip. Many cities are implementing these to reduce the amount of driving. If helmets are required, these programs won’t work. No one is going to happen to have a helmet with them when they think to hire a bike, and if helmets are provided, few people are going to wear helmets that were worn by many other people before them.)
Helmeted cyclists more likely to be struck by motorists
Helmet laws are Expensive to enforce.
Helmet laws distract police from _real_ public safety issues.
Real bike safety involves preventing cyclists from getting hit in the first place. Thus helmets should be the *last* line of defense, not the first.
Passing helmet laws provides the illusion that government has done something significant for cycling safety
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Better ways to address bike safety include:
1. Implementing a three-foot passing rule for motor vehicles passing cyclists
2. Banning cars from parking in bike lanes
3. Striping more bike lanes
4. Creating bike-only thoroughfares
5. Incorporating bike safety training into public school curriculum
6. Providing free bike safety classes to the general public
7. Enforcing traffic laws, for both motorists and cyclists
8. Holding at-fault motorists fully accountable when they injure or kill cyclists
I’m with you on your 8 improvement points Dart, but the rest is pretty much garbage. One of your statements really stood out for me: “Helmet efficacy is greatly exaggerated, and largely unproven.”
Let me just hand you this article from the Canadian Medical Association Journal titled “Nonuse of bicycle helmets and risk of fatal head injury: a proportional mortality, case–control study” to disprove it:
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2012/10/15/cmaj.120988.full.pdf
How’s that for unproven?
If you feel like you can’t ride a bicycle without falling off and smashing your head, then by all means put one on. I find staying upright on a bike fairly easy.
I don’t think we should charge kids 150 bucks for skateboarding, rollerblading or biking around helmetless. That is just so dumb. maybe 25 dollars, but 150 bucks? Where did they come up with that number?
“Real bike safety involves preventing cyclists from getting hit in the first place. Thus helmets should be the *last* line of defense, not the first.”
Don’t know if I agree that it’s the last line of defense, but it certainly (and you confirmed this) a means of defense. And one of the things that a cyclist has control over. There are dangerous, oblivious drivers out there, and they should be held accountable. But that won’t help you when you’re strapped into your wheelchair being spoonfed.
In fact, it’s the only thing on your list of 8 points that a cyclist has any control over.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I think this might have been discussed previously, say 4,000,000,000 times, it has to be regurgitated because cyclists are oxygen thieves.
Hey Scooter,
I believe the overwhelming health benefits of cycling far outweigh the far smaller risks involved riding without a helmet. Even under the most optimistic predictions of helmet benefit, the net public health outcome of helmet promotion (or laws) is negative.
For example: although the Netherlands is probably the safest country in the world for cycling, helmet wearing among Dutch cyclists is rare. It has been estimated that only about 0.5 percent of cyclists in the Netherlands are helmeted.
However, according to Dutch Government data (Rijkswaterstaat, 2008), 13.3 percent of cyclists admitted to hospital were wearing helmets when they were injured. Why does wearing a helmet appear to increase the risk of being injured so substantially?
A helmet law for cyclists under 18 was introduced in Alberta, Canada, on 1 May 2002. What happened? Dramatically less people took up bicycling.
Comprehensive survey results were published in 2011 in a PhD thesis (Karkhaneh, 2011). The data was collated from observational studies of Albertan cyclists in several cities, involving 330 hours of pre-law observations in 2000, and 313 hours of observation post-law in 2006.
The survey showed a large and significant 56% decrease in children’s cycling. The greatest decreases were at schools (68% decrease), on commuter routes (41% decrease) and in residential areas (37% decrease).
There was also a significant 27% decrease in teenage (13-17 years) cycling.
**In contrast, there was a 21% increase for adults, who were not required to wear helmets. (Karkhaneh, 2011)**
Evidence of increased risk per cyclist seems paradoxical. However, there is strong evidence that helmet laws lead to increased risk taking. For example, many males (Messiah et al, 2012) and cyclists accustomed to wearing helmets (Phillips, Fyhri and Sagberg, 2011) have been shown to cycle faster when wearing a helmet. In addition, drivers were found to leave less room when overtaking helmeted cyclists (Walker, 2007).
UK researcher, Dr Ian Walker, was hit twice by vehicles when carrying out his research, both times when wearing a helmet (Eureka, 2006). With only 44% as many children cycling as before the law, it is also possible that relatively safe cycling activities were discouraged more than riskier types of cycling.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111…
” In jurisdictions where cycling is safe, a helmet law is likely to have a large unintended negative health impact. In jurisdictions where cycling is relatively unsafe, helmets will do little to make it safer and a helmet law”
Helmet laws are bad policy and have unintended consequences. Consequences that those in the health community who advocate for these laws would be wise to pay attention to.
Halifax doesn’t need less cyclists, we need more. And as much as it may ruffle the feathers of those who think draconian laws meant to control the populace at large is the answer, it clearly is not.
Helmet laws are just a quick money grab. Once you’re over 16 or 18 it should be up to you… if you wanna go out without a helmet it should be your choice since you are a grown adult. Anyone who says “oh, it’s my tax money paying for you broken head” can go fuck themselves. When you coasting through the back streets going 5 km/h on your skateboard and the cops roll up to charge you $150 it’s ridiculous. Good thing I can run faster than all the cops I’ve run into so far. Do some real fucking police work. This is such a major issue in other developed countries that promote cycling… NOT!
I appreciate the data Dart, but for my clarification when in multiple instances you cited (loosely paraphrasing here and feel free to correct me) that “more helmeted bikers showed up at the hospital with injuries”, were those injuries head injuries or general injuries?
I am not aruing that helmets would make a net gain or loss in hospital visits (as per the Wiley abstract); I am saying it would reduce head trauma.
And I do find the data interesting that you have proven that there seems to be less biking where there is helmet laws. Thank you!
Drivers DO have mandatory safety gear that they have to wear.. They’re called seatbelts.
Dumbass..
I’ve never owned a car and have always biked (I also do ultra long distance bike tours where you camp out). Helmets are perfectly comfortable and keep the sun off your head. They also keep the rainsuit hoodie tight, and most importantly, will aid greatly in avoiding major head injury. There have been cyclists who died in accidents where a helmet would have deminished the injury to the point where the person would have lived. If it becomes legal to not wear a helmet while cycling I’ll still wear mine.